


Failed to be Charming

by Duck_Life



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Mal Is Ticklish, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 20:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11744343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: "You can tell me anything, you know," he told her."Not ANYTHING.""Yes, really, anything."Ben and Mal have a talk after Cotillion.





	Failed to be Charming

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Ben hums a little sigh of contentment, tucking his arm tighter around her. “Say it again.”

“I love you!” Mal’s laugh isn’t the choked, stilted thing it was a week ago, it’s full and clear like windchimes now. Ben curls toward her and kisses the corner of her mouth.

“Again.”

“I love you.” 

They’re stretched out on an old quilt in the middle of the tourney field, Ben still wearing his Cotillion outfit, Mal having changed out of her conjured dress into ripped jeans and a hoodie she swiped from Ben. Above them, stars glitter like sequins in silk. 

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Ben says suddenly, his hand looping comfortably around her shoulder. 

“It’s so smoggy on the Isle, we never got to see the stars like this.”

“Mal.”

“Mm?” 

“I’m serious,” he says, and she knows. She knows he’s serious; that’s what’s so scary. On the Isle, serious talks don’t happen in open spaces, flooded with moonlight and starshine. If you wanted a serious conversation, you had it tucked into an alley or mumbled into motheaten bedsheets in the middle of the night. “Mal, I want you to feel like you can tell me anything.”

_ Lie. Don’t scare him. Don’t make him leave _ . “I do feel like that,” she says, the words wooden and awkward. She’s never been a good liar. 

“Because you can, you know,” Ben continues. “I can’t help thinking… a lot of what happened happened because I wasn’t listening hard enough, I was too busy with inane royal responsibilities and I didn’t make you feel like I could hear you,” he rambles, toying with a lock of her hair, curly now and purple again. “You can tell me anything at all,  _ anything _ .”

And there’s the stilted, uncomfortable laugh again. “Well, not  _ anything _ anything.” 

Ben rolls her on her side so he can look at her full in the face. “Yeah, anything anything.”

“No.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says, eyes wide and honest and so… Ben. When he showed up on the Isle in Evie’s clothes and that stupid hat, she’d felt amazed that he even made it that far. Evie can dress him up, she and the boys can try to teach him how to be wicked, but that innate  _ goodness _ shines out of his eyes. He’s like a little baby deer sometimes, the way his eyes flood with concern and the way he cocks his head. “I mean it, Mal. You can tell me any mean, scary thought you have and I’ll listen. Even if it’s awful.” 

She’s shaking her head before he even finishes talking. “No, no, no, I can’t. I don’t know what kind of bad thoughts you guys have in Auradon, but it’s not like… and I mean, it’s not like I just get a little mad sometimes, I have  _ terrible _ thoughts about people who don’t deserve to be thought about like that. Jane. Audrey.  _ Carlos _ , sometimes.”

“About me?”

_ Yes _ . “No, not… not a lot.” 

“Tell me.”

“No way,” she says, shaking her head. 

“Why? What do you think will happen?”

_ Break-up. Banishment. Imprisonment. Getting turned into a lizard.  _ “Well… one thing’s for sure, you would  _ not _ be happy about me wearing your sweatshirt,” she jokes weakly. 

“Mal,” Ben says, so serious. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know exactly what you’re worried about, but… there is  _ nothing _ you could say that would make me stop loving you. And there’s nothing you could say that would make me want you to go back to the Isle.”

“I think you’re wrong about that.” She doesn’t meet his eyes, and he doesn’t try to make her, just keeps one hand solid on her shoulder while the other toys with her hair. 

“I’m the king and that means I’m always right,” he declares. “And, look, Mal, yes, you could say something that would hurt me. You could say something that would make me sad. You could even say something that would break my heart. But my point is that there’s nothing you could say that would make me  _ not _ love you. Because nothing can do that.” He hesitates. “Well, I mean, maybe magic… but even then, with Uma, it wasn’t like I  _ stopped _ loving you I was just very, very confused, it was like a weird dream…” 

“Ben,” she says, putting a finger on his lips. 

“Right,” he says, smiling. He takes her wrist, kisses the side of her hand before returning it to her. “The point is. I love you and even if you say something horrible to me I’ll still love you.” 

“What if I said you looked really dumb in that stocking cap?” she says, eyes glittering mischievously. 

Without missing a beat, Ben says, “I’d say that your blonde hair made you look like a towhead.” 

That startles a laugh out of her. Ben almost never talks trash. “That’s exactly what Dizzy said.” 

“I like the purple,” Ben confirms. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re beautiful no matter what, but the blonde just didn’t…  _ fit _ you, you know?”

“Yeah,” she sighs.

“Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

Mal bites her lip. “What if I told you that I think your dad is kind of a furry?”

Ben laughs. “Don’t hold back. Kinkshaming is a time-honored tradition in Auradon.” He smirks; it’s a weird, but good, look for him. “And besides, you’re the one with the dragonsona.” 

Mal gasps in shock and whaps him lightly on the shoulder, and he retaliates by tugging her closer and tickling her right behind her ribcage where he knows she’s most ticklish, and she shrieks and kicks at his feet. They tussle, rolling around on the quilt until she winds up balanced on her elbows over him, his eyes reflecting the moon as he looks up at her. 

Mal sobers and says, “I’m terrified of becoming my mother.”

“Okay,” Ben says simply. 

“I have no idea how I’m supposed to live now without my spellbook.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m not ready to even  _ think _ about getting married.”

Ben smiles. “Me neither.” Mal looks at him, surprised that he’s not objecting. No, she didn’t expect him to feel ready to get married either, but she thought he’d be thinking about it at least as much as Lonnie was. 

It’s a relief to realize that even though their stories start in different places, they’re on the same page. 


End file.
